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Musicals often demonstrate the cultural aspects of the periods in which they were written
Dowd, James M., M.A.
The American University, 1991
Copyright ©1991 by Dowd, James M. All rights reserved.
UMI 300N.ZeebRd. Ann Aibor, MI 48106
MUSICALS OFTEN DEMONSTRATE THE CULTURAL ASPECTS
OF THE PERIODS IN WHICH THEY WERE WRITTEN
by
James M. Dowd
submitted to the
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences
of The American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
in
Arts Management
Signatures of Committee:
Cha i r:
< L .
the College l3 Jaw, m/ Date
1991
The American University _ _
Washington, D.C. 20016
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY @ COPYRIGHT
by
JAMES M. DOWD
1991
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MUSICALS OFTEN DEMONSTRATE THE CULTURAL ASPECTS
OF THE PERIODS IN WHICH THEY WERE WRITTEN
BY
James M. Dowd
ABSTRACT
The American musical theatre is one of the few art forms truly native to this country. As such, it represents popular American thought and serves as a barometer of the various attitudes and feelings held throughout the twentieth century. An analysis of the scripts and scores of important works of musical theatre will help in understanding the nature of popular thought during different historical periods.
Three musicals have been analyzed in this thesis: Of
Thee I Sing, by George and Ira Gershwin, Oklahoma by Richard
Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and Company by Stephen
Sondheim. Each was chosen for two reasons: because it represents one of the most important works within a respective period, and because each period represented a particularly troubling time - the Great Depression, World
War II, and the social turmoil of the late 1960's. TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
II. THE ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN MUSICAL THEATRE . . . 5
III. OF THEE I SING: THE GERSHWINS RESPOND TO THE GREAT DEPRESSION...... 22
IV. THE WAR YEARS: RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN CELEBRATE AMERICA ...... 34
V. STEPHEN SONDHEIM QUESTIONS MIDDLE CLASS VALUES ...... 45
VI. CONCLUSION ...... 58
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 62
iii CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This thesis discusses the relationship between attitudes reflected in the in American popular culture, during different historical periods from 1930 to 1970, and the attitudes reflected in some of the most significant pieces of musical theatre of the periods. Three musicals have been chosen for analysis: Of Thee I Sing, rooted in the
Depression era; Oklahoma, an adaption of a 1928 script which provided insight into the war years of the 1940's; and
Company reflecting attitudes about the social turmoil of the late 1960's.
The meaning of the term "popular culture" perhaps seems obvious. Noted author and lecturer Gary Day, however states that:
Popular culture covers so vast an area that contact with it cannot be avoided...it is easily accessible and involves mass participation [and] it is the mythology which gives meaning to society and through which society understands itself.1
Popular culture "is made by the people, not produced
xGary Day, Readings In Popular Culture. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), 1.
1 by the culture industry."2 In his book, Understanding
Popular Culture. John Fiske states that "'the people' is not a stable sociological category:"3
The people, the popular, the popular forces, are a shifting set of allegiances that cross all social categories; various individuals belong to different popular formations at different times, often moving between them quite fluidly.4
"The people," according to Fiske, are described "in terms of [their] felt collectivity [not] in terms of external sociological factors such as class or race."5
In a country as large and diverse as the United
States, the concept of "the people" becomes difficult to define. With the rise of "multiculturalism" has come an increasing awareness of the diverse racial and ethnic compositions of the United States. Various racial and ethnic groups (most notably African-American, Latino-
American, and Asian-American) have distinct histories, both in the "Old World" and in the "New World," and a distinct value system for each is only now being recognized and celebrated. Until very recently it was only the history and value system of white middle-class Americans that comprised
"popular culture." For example the creators of the three
2John Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture, (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 24.
3Ibid., 24.
‘Ibid.
5Ibid. musicals that have been studied were all products of white middle-class homes. Their creations reflect that particular value system.
Musical theatre is often referred to as one of the only truly American art forms.6 Its development stemmed from several different European sources but by the early decades of the twentieth century it became an American expression of popular thinking. Christian Mendenhall, author of American Musical Comedy From 1943 to 1964: A
Theoretical Investigation Of Its Ritual Function, states that "Musicals seem to ritualize a very specific area of human experience which has been termed 'The American Dream7 by historians and sociologists.117 Mendenhall goes on to say that the book musical
symbolized the world view of one particular society in one particular historical moment. It ritualized the moral universe by which white middle-class American society... judged its acts and identity. Though tied to the culture of one class in the society this moral universe was considered as a national self-concept and named the 'American Dream.78
Michael T. Marsden of the Popular Culture Association has espoused:
If popular culture is a reflection of our society, as indeed it is, then the products it produces can be said
6Deems Taylor, foreword to The World Of Musical Comedy by Stanley Green, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1980), ix.
7Christian Dean Mendenhall, American Musical Comedy From 1943 to 1964: A Theoretical Investigation Of Its Ritual Functionf (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University, 1988), 2.
8Ibid., 31. to be mirrors of that society. The mirrored images may be somewhat distorted, but the image will be generally accurate. We can know a people by what they consume, and we are what we enjoy.9
That the three shows selected for this thesis were
"consumed11 is undeniable. Of Thee I Sina had a run of 441 performances in its Broadway premiere, an extraordinary run for its day.10 Oklahoma had a run of 2,245 performances, the longest run to that point in history.11 Company was performed 690 times, extraordinary for the early 1970's.12
While these figures seem very different, they represent extraordinary runs for each of their respective times.
The musicals chosen for this thesis represent popular thought and culture of very specific times in American history. The creators of these works were products of a particular system of beliefs and so their ideas reflect the times in which they lived and worked. An analysis of the three musicals helps in understanding aspects of American attitudes and values, as well as the development of musical theatre.
9Donald Lazere, American Media and Mass Culture. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 1.
10Gerald Bordman, American Musical Theatre. A Chronicle. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 441.
“ Ibid., 536.
“ Craig Zadan, Sondheim and Co.. (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1989), 399. CHAPTER II
THE ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN
MUSICAL THEATRE
This study analyzes a contemporary American form of musical theatre where the "book" is the predominant structural entity. This form was initiated in 1927 with
Showboat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II and continues to be one of the major formats for musical theatre.
In order to understand the roots of the "book musical," it is necessary to examine first the three forms of musical theatre that were instrumental to its development
- operetta, the musical revue, and musical comedy.
Operetta is a light form of entertainment which is either satirical, sentimental, frivolous, or all three. Its story is told with music and only limited dialogue. The
United States inherited the operetta from the United Kingdom and from Austria through performances on various stages in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
According to musical theatre author Julian Mates, "part of the joy in these works lies in the musical satire of grand
5 opera, though part is in the delight with the music itself."13 The "wit, the satire, the absurd plots and nonsensical moments" all contributed to their success.14
The English contribution to the development of the
American operetta was largely due to W. S. Gilbert and
Arthur Sullivan. The first performance of a Gilbert and
Sullivan production in the United States took place in
Boston on November 25, 1878.15 This production, HMS
Pinafore. was an unauthorized performance for which Gilbert and Sullivan received no royalties, due to a lack of any copyright agreement between the United States and the United
Kingdom.16 In 1879, Gilbert and Sullivan authorized a first production of The Pirates of Penzance in the United
States. This show premiered on December 31, 1879 at The
Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York.17
Viennese Operetta was, according to Mates, similar to the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, but had the added touches of "sentimentality and glamour and romance and exotic locales peopled by royalty and a kind of well-bred
“Julian Mates, America's Musical Stager (New York: Praeger, 1987), 72.
“ Ibid.
“Bordman, 46.
“Mates, 71.
“Bordman, 51. artificiality.1'18 The first Viennese Operetta performed in this country was Franz von Suppe's Fantinitza on April 14,
1879, at the Germania (in German), and eight days later at
The Fifth Avenue (in English).19 This operetta had a powerful impact on New York audiences. Largely overlooked today, it "remained a favorite for over a decade."20
The transition from Vienesse Operetta to American
Operetta was accomplished primarily by one man: Victor
Herbert. The composer of such classic operettas as The
Fortune Teller. Babes In Toyland, and Nauahtv Marietta was born in Dublin in 1859, and educated in Germany. At the age of twenty-six he emigrated to this country in order to take a job with the Metropolitan Opera Company as a cellist.
Soon after, on November 20, 1894, Herbert's first operetta,
Prince Ananias, premiered with The Bostonian, a "well known touring troupe" in New York.21 Thus began the composing career of one of America's most important contributors to the musical stage. His later works, especially Mademoiselle
Modiste (1905), Naughty Marietta (1910), and Eileen (1917), helped to solidify the Americanization of this, once exclusively German, art form. While Herbert continued with a musical structure of using waltzes (3/4 time) as the
“Mates, 72.
“ Bordman, 48.
2°Ibid.
21Green, 9. predominant approach to the score, he also moved toward using American love stories and popular myths, as opposed to the often aristocratic themes of Viennese Operetta.22
The next major form that influenced the book musical was the "revue." The French spelling of the word "revue" is an indication of its origins. Based on the types of shows found in Paris, such as The Folies Beraeres. the revue is a compilation of songs and skits intended to entertain.
Revues were not simply collections of songs strung together, but rather shows "tied together first by plots, and later, occasionally, by themes."23 They are often remembered for their "sumptuous scenery, exquisitely composed tableaux, and long lines of beautiful girls parading in sometimes gorgeous, sometimes grotesque costumes."24 The revue was most frequently "satirical in nature" and generally highlighted the significant (as seen by the writers) political and societal occurrences of the previous year.25
The first major revue presented in the United States was The Passing Show, produced by George W. Lederer on May
12, 1894, at the Casino Theatre in New York. The Passing
Show was responsible for shaping the first generation of
22Alan Jay Lerner, The Musical Theatre. A Celebration. (New York: Mc-Graw Hill Book Company, 1986), 43 - 44.
23Gerald Bordman, American Musical Revue. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 11.
24Ibid., 4.
2SMates, 146. revues.26 Lederer spelled review in the Anglicized way to note that this was the first attempt in America at this particular form. It would take Flo Ziegfield whose first
"revue" premiered in 1907 to adopt the French spelling.27
The third form that influenced the contemporary book musical was "musical comedy." While no exact date or show is given as the start - some arguing that The Black Crook was the first, others arguing that Little Johnny Jones was the first - musical comedy is a distinct form of musical theatre. Webster's definition of musical comedy as "a light play with dialogue, songs, and dances"28 is to the point, but hardly seems adequate. Every musical comedy has, at least, a script and a score, with the additional possibility of choreography. Musical comedy has been defined as an integrated musical.29 This refers to the particular form of theatre that uses score, script, and possibly choreography, to communicate a particular story with particular characters. This is neither a revue, in which songs and skits are tied together in order to satirize a political or social situation, nor a popular operetta, in which music is the predominant artistic expression, often
26Bordman, American Musical Theatre. A Chronicle. 129.
27Ibid.
^Webster's New World Dictionary, s.v. "musical comedy."
29Mendenha 11, 119. 10 sung by underdeveloped characters in simplistic plots.
Musical comedy uses much more dialogue and perhaps dance, to tell its story, which itself is often a dramatization of an
American popular myth. Julian Mates states that it is
"precisely the balance of many elements" that makes musical comedy successful.30
A date of great significance in the development of today's book musical, and to the American musical theatre in general, is September 12, 1866, when The Black Crook opened in New York. This show happened quite by accident for, in its original form, The Black Crook had been a non-musical melodrama intended for the Niblo Garden Theatre in
Manhattan, as a minor attraction. Due to open at the same time was La Biche Aux Bois. a French ballet, imported from
Paris, and scheduled to premiere at the Academy of Music in
Manhattan. Just prior to opening night, the Academy of
Music burned down and left the ballet with no space in which to perform.31
The producers of the ballet, Henry C. Jarrett and
Harry Palmer, seemingly having no alternative, turned to
William Wheatley, the producer of The Black Crook, proposing that they combine forces. Jarrett and Palmer's idea was to combine the melodramatic play with the spectacle of the
30Mates, 201.
31Cecil Smith and Glenn Litton, Musical Comedy in America, (Methuen: Theatre Arts Books, 1981), 7 - 8. 11 ballet. This would require the author of the play, Charles
Barras, to make several changes in his script. Barras initially rejected this idea, but was eventually convinced, due to his "near starvation" and a royalty contract with a
$1500.00 down payment.32
The Black Crook is important for several reasons.
"Most historians agree that The Black Crook is a direct antecedent, perhaps the first, not of musical comedy, but of the musical extravaganza.33 Mates adds that this show was the first do display "a gargantuan appetite for all sorts of popular theatrical arts."34 While it is clear that The
Black Crook was not a book musical, it still played an important role in the development of musical theatre. While much of this show was geared to finding "creative" ways to show off the female body, some of it was about the political problems of the day (some of which were severe, as this show opened in September of 1866, during the aftermath of the
Civil war). Mates tells us that "typical is the scene where the Black Crook summons up the evil one and chants: "I'll call to aid the Evil One/He's just come from Washington/
32Ibid., 8.
33Glenn Loney, Ed., Musical Theatre In America. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), 105.
34Mates, 132. 12
He'll aid me in my dire distress/Then send me on to
Congeress!"35
What was most important about The Black Crook was the impact it made on audiences across the country, and especially in New York. For example, The Black Crook was revived in New York alone (after playing 475 times originally) in 1868, 1871, 1873, 1879, 1881, 1884, 1889, and
1892.36 Companies performed the show across the country from 1869 until 1906, in major cities and small towns.37
With each successive revival, the French balletic aspect of the show was increasingly de-emphasized, and was eventually replaced with "popular dancing and topical variety entertainment."38 Cecil Smith, an early authority on musical theatre, indicates that New York audiences had never witnessed such a spectacle as The Black Crook.39 It would dominate the musical stage for the next forty years, both in its revivals and in its imitators, such as The White
Fawn.40
The next major development in the musical theatre occurred after the turn of the century, when, on November 7,
35Ibid. , 134.
36Smith, 11.
37Ibid.
38Ibid.
39Ibid., 8.
4°Ibid., 12. 1904, George M. Cohan premiered Little Johnny Jones at the
Liberty Theatre in New York.41 While Cohan's shows are often looked down upon today because of their simplistic nature and their patriotic fervor, it cannot be denied that
Cohan played a major role in the development of musical comedy. Little Johnny Jones is famous for its score, which included such songs as "Yankee Doodle Dandy," "Give My
Regards To Broadway," and "Life's A Funny Proposition After
All." Stanley Green states that these "tunes were meant to be whistled" and that "the lyrics came from the heart."42
Of equal importance to the development of the musical is the structure of the show. Cohan advertised Little Johnny Jones as "a play with music."43 Most of the score was performed in the third act, and the entire second act consisted strictly of dialogue,44 as character development was of utmost importance in this production. Gerald Bordman states that the show's "dimensions were human - the characters had blood that rushed to their cheeks and their dialogue was vibrant."45 In fact, most critics attacked the show because Cohan used contemporary language for his characters,
41Bordman, 205.
42Green, 24.
43Bordman, 205.
44Ibid.
4SIbid. , 206. 14 rather than the stilted language used in popular theatre at the time.46
The lyrics to one of the major popular hits from this show help illuminate the fact that musical comedy had moved into a new realm. The ballad "Life's A Funny Proposition
After All" offers these thoughts:
Life's a very funny proposition after all Imagination, jealousy, hypocrisy and all; Three meals a day, a whole lot to say; When you haven't got the coin you're always in the way.
Everybody fighting as we wend our way along, Every fellow claims the other fellow's in the wrong; Hurried and worried until we're buried and there's no curtain call. Life's a very funny proposition after all.
Gerald Bordman emphasizes that these lyrics were very different than anything New York audiences had seen or heard previously. Here was a song that was not simply a ballad about "love gone wrong" but rather a statement (albeit simplified for lyrical reasons) about life.47 This is not to say that Cohan did not write the more traditional musical comedy lyrics, such as those found in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Give My Regards To Broadway." But this show clearly represents a break from the past.
Cohan also seemed to understand the feelings of the
American people at this particular time. Little Johnny
Jones, as well as important successive shows, such as Georae
46Ibid.
47Bordman, 205. 15
Washington. Jr.. Forty-five Minutes From Broadway, and The
Yankee Prince. portrayed a flag-waving patriotism that
"caught the spirit of a country just beginning to "emerge as a world power.”48 Such unabashed patriotism won over audiences to this celebration of America as Cohan envisioned it. Oscar Hammerstein is quoted as saying that:
never was a plant more indigenous to a particular part of the earth than was George M. Cohan to the United States of his day. The whole nation was confident of its superiority, its moral virtue, its happy isolation from the intrigues of the old country.49
Another innovation that Cohan was responsible for is the style of presenting musical theatre. Cohan was quoted on the opening night of The Governor/s Son in 1901 as telling his cast not to "wait for laughs. Side-step encores. Crash right through this show. Speed! Speed!
That/s my idea of this thing - perpetual motion."50 Julian
Mates tells us that this is a clear break from both the musical comedy styles of the time and from operetta. Mates believes that Cohan's writing was geared toward the
"bustling, energetic tempo of his audience."5X This break set the stage for the presentational style of musical comedy in years to come.
The American musical theatre was forever changed,
48Green, 24.
49Ibid. , 21.
soMates, 178.
51Ibid. 16 however, on the evening of December 27, 1927, with the premiere of Showboat at the Ziegfield Theatre in New York, with book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and score by
Jerome Kern.52 Hammerstein, by adapting Edna Ferber's novel to the stage, essentially invented the book musical as we know it today.
The individuals involved in this production were some of the most important names in the history of musical theatre. In addition to Kern and Hammerstein, the team included Producer Florenz Ziegfield, Designer Joseph Urban, and a cast that included Charles Winniger as Cap'n Andy,
Norma Terris as Magnolia, and Helen Morgan as Julie.53
This was the second collaboration for Kern and
Hammerstein. By the time of this collaboration, Kern was well established as one of America's great composers, while
Hammerstein was still struggling for acceptance. Kern is quoted as saying that he believed that '•Hammerstein was ready to strike out on his own" due to the "shows he had collaborated on in the preceding three years."54
Hammerstein had already co-written several operettas:
Wildflower (1923), Rose-Marie (1924), Sunny (1925), and The
Desert Sona (1926).55
52Bordman, 434.
“ Ibid.
“ Ibid., 18 - 19.
“ Ibid., 18. 17
Jerome Kern was considered an elder statesman of the musical theatre by the time he composed Showboat. Having just completed reading Ferber's novel in October, 1926, Kern called his friend Alexander Woollcott, also a friend of Edna
Ferber's, and asked him to set up a meeting. Ferber, while skeptical at the beginning, agreed to let Kern write a musical based on her novel.56
Jerome Kern's career had begun with the composing of songs to be interpolated into existing musicals. In the span of five years between 1905 and 1910, Kern wrote songs for over twenty different productions.57 Stanley Green states that this profoundly influenced Kern's belief that musicals needed to be written as entire entities.58 While
Showboat is generally seen as Kern's greatest show, the list of his important musicals is rather long, including The Red
Petticoat (1910), The Girl From Utah (1914), Very Good Eddie
(1915), Oh. Bov 1 (1917), Oh. Ladvi Ladvl (1918), Sallv
(1920), The Cat And The Fiddle (1931), and Roberta
(1933).59 Stanley Green quotes Richard Rodgers as saying:
Kern was typical of what was, and still is, good in our general maturity in this country in that he had his musical roots in the fertile middle European and English school of operetta writing, and amalgamated it with everything that was fresh in the American
“ Ibid., 18.
57Green, 53.
“ Ibid.
“ Ibid., 55 - 64. 18
scene to give us something wonderfully new and clear in music writing.60
The plot and sub-plot of Showboat were innovations in musical theatre. The subject matter had never before been incorporated into a musical and, while the main plot was highly theatricalized and traditional, the sub-plot had a non-traditional outcome. The story itself begins in 1887 and ends in 1927, a forty year span that was a massive undertaking.
The plot revolves around Magnolia, the daughter of
Cap'n Andy and Parthy, the owners and operators of the
Cotton Blossom, a showboat; and Gaylord Ravenal, a riverboat gambler. At first, their story seems to be similar to that in typical musical comedy fare. The couple, seemingly different, fall in love and are married with the blessing of
Cap'n Andy (though Parthy is vehemently opposed to the wedding). The opening of the second act shows that the young couple has moved to Chicago and that Gaylord has continued his gambling to support the couple. Initially, they have enough money to survive, but after a few years,
Gaylord no longer wins enough money to support himself,
Magnolia, and their, now, eight year old daughter Kim.
Gaylord abandons Magnolia, who is left to fend for herself.
He does not return until the end of the show, more than twenty years later.
60Ibid., 52. The major sub-plot revolves around Julie LaVerne, star of the Cotton Blossom, and her threatened arrest for miscegenation while the showboat is docked in Natchez,
Mississippi. Unbeknownst to anyone on the Cotton Blossom,
Julie is a mulatto. Married to a white man, Julie is in violation of the law in Jim Crow Mississippi of 1887. She and her husband, Steve, flee the showboat and head toward
Chicago, in order to avoid arrest. Julie is not seen again until the second half of the second act when she is singing in a nightclub. By this point she is alone, a drunk, and completely alienated from virtually everyone. Hers is an unhappy tale, unheard of in musical theatre up to this point.
The other important element in Showboat f while not exactly a sub-plot, concerns Joe, the black servant on the showboat, his wife Queenie, and the chorus of black workers, who serve as almost constant 11 background" to the white characters. Hammerstein's scripting of these black characters was truly innovative in the musical theatre.
Hammerstein and Kern were intent on making the characters in this musical realistic, as opposed to the contrived characters of musical comedy and operetta. Perhaps the most realistic characterization was Joe. His character sings
"01' Man River," the lament of the black characters, and a lament for all of humanity, too. The lyrics are most telling: 20
You an' me, we seat an' strain Body al achin an' racked wid' pain Tote dat barge! Lift dat bale! Git a little drunk an' you land in jail.
I git weary, An' sick of tryin' I'm tired of livin', an skeered of dyin', But ol' man river, He jes keeps rollin' along.
Colored folks work on de Mississippi Colored folks work while de white folks play, Pullin' dem boats frim de dawn to sunset, Gitten no rest till de Judgement Day.
Don't look up, an don't look down You don't dast make de white boss frown. Bend yo knees, an' bow yo head You pull dat rope, until yo're dead.
Let me go 'way from de Mississippi Let me go 'way from de white man boss. Show me dat stream called de river Jordan Dat's de ol' stream dat I long to cross.
The reprise is sung when the show has shifted to 1927 and updates the lyrics to refer to World War I:61
New things come, an' ol' things go, But all things look de same to Joe. Wars go on, an' some folks die, De res' ferget de reason why.
The other recurring musical theme representing the black characters is entitled "Mis'ry's Cornin' Aroun'.11 This is often used as underscoring to represent the hardships of the black characters, but it is most effectively used when sung by the black chorus as Julie flees the showboat in order to avoid arrest. Sung in the tempo of a dirge, the chorus sings:
On my back, In a hack, In a fohty dollah hack;
61Mordden, 64. 21
No mo' gin, No mo' rum Fo' de misery done come.
It is clear that Hammerstein and Kern set out to advance the concept of the American musical theatre. Huge strides were taken with this show. Mordden states that
Showboat is "true epic," and that the show contains the
"contradictions of America - the city versus the country, mobility versus holding on to roots, white versus black, progress versus stability, and motion versus tradition.1162
Showboat began a movement which continued throughout the remainder of the twentieth century and clearly set the precedent for the musicals of George and Ira Gershwin.
62Mordden, 105. CHAPTER III
OF THEE I SING: THE GERSHWINS
RESPOND TO THE GREAT DEPRESSION
George Gershwin's career began as a rehearsal pianist and as a writer on Tin Pan Alley composing "trunk songs"63 for various revues. The song which made Gershwin most popular was "Swanee," sung by A1 Jolson in Atlantic City in
1919 in Sinbad.64 Gershwin's first complete score for the musical stage was La La Lucille, which opened at the Henry
Miller Theatre in New York on May 26, 1919.65 Gerald
Bordman states that in La La Lucille, "one can hear [Jerome]
Kern's influence on the young New Yorker, but unmistakable
Gershwin touches are there as well."66 While this show did not have any lasting impact on the musical theatre, it did shift Gershwin's career from song writing on Tin Pan Alley to show writing for Broadway.
George Gershwin's first collaboration on a complete
63A "trunk song" is one that can be interpolated into any number of musicals, and is not written with any particular "book" in mind.
64Green, 88.
6SBordman, 339.
66Ibid. , 339 - 340.
22 23 score with his brother Ira was Lady Be Goodl. which opened on December 1, 1924 at the Liberty Theatre in New York.67
"With this show the rhythms, tensions, and color of stage jazz were defined; the gutsy Negro creation was given a cerebral white reinterpretation.1,68 The Gershwins would go on to write a total of thirteen shows69 ranging in style from musical comedy to book musical to folk opera.
Of Thee I Sina opened on December 26, 1931, at the
Music Box Theatre in New York.70 With a book written by
George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, the show is important for two major reasons: its impact on the musical theatre form, and its cultural/political statement.
Of The I Sina was written against the backdrop of the
Great Depression. With unemployment rampant, virtually no government assistance available, and an administration in
Washington unresponsive to the needs of the people, Of Thee
I Sing attacked government inaction without ever mentioning the Stock Market Crash, Hoovervilles, or unemployment lines.
Tuesday, October 29, 1929 - Black Tuesday - was the
67Ibid. , 395.
68Ibid.
69The thirteen shows were: Tell Me More! (1925), Tip- T Q .es (1925), Sona Of The Flame (1925), Oh. Kavl (1926), Funny.,FePorgy and Bess (1935). Green, 88 - 97.
7°Bordman, 473. 24
date that began the Great Depression. On that day, the
stock market crashed causing an unforeseen panic which
resulted in tremendous financial loss for most major
American companies, and many individual investors. On that
day alone, the average prices of the fifty leading stocks
(as compiled by the New York Times') dropped forty points.71
Soon, the "foreign exchanges, the lesser American exchanges,
and the grain market" followed.72
The Hoover Administration at first attempted to allay
the fears of the public, making such statements as
"conditions were fundamentally sound."73 Additionally,
Hoover set his cabinet officers on a course telling the
public what they wanted to hear: i.e. Secretary of the
Treasury Andrew Mellon saying that there will be "a revival
of activity in the spring" (January, 1930); Secretary of
Commerce Thomas Lamont saying "there are grounds for
assuming that this is a normal year" (February, 1930); and
Julius H. Barnes, head of the National Business Survey
Conference (appointed by Hoover) stating "the spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern...American
71Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday. An Informal History Of The 1920^s. (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1964), 277.
72Ibid.
73Ibid., 283. 25
business is steadily coining back to a normal level of
prosperity” (March, 1930).74
In his Only Yesterday. An Informal History Of The
1920/s f Frederick Allen Lewis comments on the effects of the
Depression, and the lack of response to it by the Hoover
Administration, relative to the average citizen. He says:
Prosperity is more than an economic condition; it is a state of mind. The Big Bull Market had been more than the climax of a business cycle; it had been the climax of a cycle in American mass thinking and mass emotion. There was hardly a man or woman in the country whose attitudes toward life had not been affected by it in some degree and who was not now affected by the sudden and brutal shattering of hope. With the Big Bull Market gone and prosperity going, Americans were soon to find themselves living in an altered world which called for new adjustments, new ideas, new habits of thought, and a new order of values. The psychological climate was changing; the ever-shifting currents of American life were turning into new channels.75
George and Ira Gershwin witnessed the effects of the
Depression all about them throughout 1930 and 1931: the
economic situation increasingly disastrous, unemployment on
the rise, and the Hoover Administration telling the people that "prosperity was just around the corner." Of Thee I
Sina "had a stinging point of view...In the depths of the
Depression, when everything else seemed to be falling apart,
it made the musical stage part of the culture of
America.1,76
74Ibid.
75Ibid., 281.
76Stanley Richards in Great Musicals of the American Theatre. (Randor, PA: Chilton Book Company, 1973), 573. 26
Of Thee I Sina opens with a campaign parade and the cast singing "Wintergreen for President," while carrying signs that read "Turn The Reformers Out," "Vote For
Prosperity And See What You Get," "He Kept Us Out Of Jail," and "A Vote For Wintergreen Is A Vote For Wintergreen." The campaign theme, "Wintergreen for President/He's the man the people choose/'specially all the Irish and the Jews," is interspersed with sections of real American Presidential campaign tunes from the past.
The second scene takes place in a hotel room a few minutes after the Party (not specifically named) has nominated John P. Wintergreen for President and Alexander
Throttlebottom for Vice President. The Party officials
(comprised of Senators and a newspaper publisher) are concerned that they may lose the Presidential election because the electorate seems volatile:
Gilhooley: I think maybe they're [referring to the electorate] getting wise to us.
Lippman: Say! If they haven't got wise to us in forty years, they'll never get wise.
Gilhooley: Yah, but I don't like the way they've been acting lately.. You know, we never should have sold Rhode Island.
The Party officials ask a chambermaid what it is that she most values, and what it is she would most want to vote for. Her first response is money, but when pressed again, she responds "love." The use of the chambermaid is interesting for several reasons. First, she is a woman 27
(only eleven years after the vote was extended to women).
Secondly, she is practical. In these Depression times, it is money that first speaks to her; love is only secondary.
From this, the politicians decide to run Wintergreen on a platform of "love."
The politicians arrange for a beauty contest to be held in Atlantic City where Wintergreen will ask the most beautiful woman to be his bride. He will propose to her in all forty-eight states during the campaign, and will convince the populace that love is the only answer.
The scene shifts to Atlantic City and the beauty contest underway. Wintergreen arrives on the scene, views the women, and then meets Mary Turner, the faithful assistant who is logging-in the contestants. Instead of proposing to the winner of the beauty contest, Diana
Devereaux, he proposes to Mary Turner, primarily because he is attracted to her ability to make good corn muffins:
WINTERGREEN: I don't know anything about these girls - whether they can sew, or make a bed, or cook. They don't look as though they'd ever had a skillet in their hands.
MARY: You wouldn't have to worry about that in the White House. They have plenty of servants there.
WINTERGREEN: Yeah, but some day we'll have to move out of the White House. Then what? The Old President's Home? There'll be no servants there. She'll have to cook; then what?
MARY: Then she'll cook. And like it.
WINTERGREEN: But will I like it? Why, the average girltoday can't cook - she can't even boil an egg. 28
MARY: Nonsense! Every girl can cook.
WINTERGREEN: Every girl can cook - can you?
MARY: I certainly can!
WINTERGREEN: Then what are you doing here?
MARY: I'm holding down a job! And I can cook, and sew, and make lace curtains, and bake the best darned corn muffins you ever ate. And what do you know about that?
WINTERGREEN: Corn Muffins? Did you say corn muffins?
MARY: Yes, corn muffins!
WINTERGREEN: Corn muffins! You haven't got one on you, have you?
MARY: I haven't got far to go.
Wintergreen and Mary Turner are happily united as a couple, pledging ever-lasting love.
The most significant statement in Of Thee I Sina is about the lack of an adequate response by the Hoover
Administration to the effects of the Great Depression on the
American people. Of Thee I Sina is filled with attacks on politicians and the unresponsiveness of government. Some examples:
Act I, Scene 5, takes place in Madison Square Garden in New York City on the evening before the election. Here,
John P. Wintergreen will propose marriage to Mary Turner one last time, as he has done in the forty-seven other states throughout the campaign. To begin the rally, two characters, Sam Jenkins and Miss Benson, with the entire chorus, sings "Love Is Sweeping The Country:" 29
Love is sweeping the country; Waves are hugging the shore; All the sexes/From Maine to Texas Have never known such love before. See them billing and cooing Like the birdies above. Each girl and boy alike, Sharing joy alike Feels that passion'll Soon be national. Love is sweeping the country - There never was so much love.
Next Senator Fulton steps to the podium to introduce
Wintergreen and says that "We do not talk to you about war
debts or wheat or immigration - we appeal to your hearts;
not your intelligence.11 The rally ends with great applause,
and Wintergreen is elected the following day.
The final scene of the first act takes place on the
steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. where Wintergreen
is to be inaugurated as President and married to Mary
Turner, all in the same ceremony. The Justices of the
Supreme Court make the first entrance and sing their theme:
As the super Solomans of this great nation; We will supervise today's Inauguration, And we'll sup'rintend the wedding celebration In a manner official and judicial.
We have powers that are positively regal; Only we can take a law and make it legal. We're the A.K.'s who give the O.K.'si
Next, the Chief Justice asks for President
Wintergreen's Inaugural Address. Wintergreen sings:
I have definite ideas about the Philippines And the herring situation up in Bismark; I have notions on the salaries of movie queens, And the men who sign their signatures with this mark! (making the sign of the cross) 30
But on this glorious day I find I'm sentimentally inclined And so - I sing this to the girls I used to know.
Wintergreen goes on to sing to all of the women that he used to date, indicating that he will no longer be able to see them. Not a word is mentioned about any political issue. The act ends with the reappearance of Diana
Devereaux (the "contestant" winner from Atlantic City) who threatens a lawsuit against the new President for "breach of promise." The President responds by singing the closing song of the act which pledges eternal love to Mary Turner:
Of thee I sing, baby, Summer, autumn, winter, spring, baby - Shining star and inspiration, Worthy of a mighty nation, Of thee I sing.
The second act opens with the chorus singing about how delighted they are to be working in Washington for the
Administration:
Oh, it's great to be a secret'ry In the White House, D.C. You get inside information on Algeria; You know ev'ry move they're making in Liberia. You learn what's what and what is not In the land of the free. Ev'ry corner that you turn you meet a notable With a statement that is eminently quotable - Oh, it's great to be a secret'ry In the White House, D.C.
Next the audience is told that Diana Devereaux has indeed been traveling throughout the country lambasting the
President and reporters have gathered at the White House to ask him how he will respond: 31
REPORTERS: We don't want to hear about the moratorium, Or how near we are to beer, Or about the League of Nations, Or the seventeen vacations, You have had since you've been here. Here's the one thing that the people of America Are beside themselves to know: They would like to know what's doing On the lady who is suing You - Diana Devereaux? From the highest to the low: What about Miss Devereaux?
WINTERGREEN: Here's some information I will gladly give the nation: I am for the true love; Here's the only girl I do love.
MARY: I love him and he loves me, And that's how it will always be, So what care we about Miss Devereaux?
BOTH: Who cares what the public chatters, Love's the only thing that matters.
WINTERGREEN: Who cares If the sky cares to fall in the sea? Who cares what banks fail in Yonkers - Long as you've a kiss that conquers. Why should I care? Life is one long jubilee, So long as I care for you And you care for me.
Soon the public chatter is such that great animosity is raised against Wintergreen. With tremendous political cowardice, the Senate falls in line and impeaches the
President. While the roll call is being tallied, looking very much like a defeat for Wintergreen, Mary Turner appears on the floor of the Senate to announce that: 32
I'm about to be a mother; He's about to be a father; We're about to have a baby;
With this news the Senators respond:
She's about to be a mother; He's about to be a father; They're about to have a baby. We can't bother A budding young father!
The President is cleared of all charges while all rejoice by singing: "Prosperity is just around the corner!"
The show ends with the First Lady having twins and Diana
Devereaux being paired with Vice President Throttlebottom.
Musical theatre historian Ethan Mordden has compared the form used in Of Thee I Sina with that found in Gilbert and Sullivan. Mordden states:
he [G. Gershwin] created a new kind of comic musical,a superspoof. The script, entirely given over to political satire, is funny - but the score, too, jokes. The music jokes, in George's pastiche, quotations, burlesque, and Savoyard pranking. 77
Without ever mentioning the name of Herbert Hoover or the Republican Party, the creators of Of Thee I Sina lampooned the Administration, its policies, and the politicians themselves. Within the text of the show itself lies the key to understanding this attack. There are both direct and indirect references to the political situations of the day. The direct ones include references to prohibition, the League of Nations, and the lyric "who cares what banks fail in Yonkers?" Some of the less direct
77Mordden, 92. 33 references include the political party being in power for forty years and references to prohibition such as the lyric
"or how near we are to beer."
Of Thee I Sina was the first musical to win a Pulitzer
Prize for best play.78 According to Julian Mates, "more and more, people had begun to notice its potential. A certain pride in what seems to be a peculiarly American form was developing."79
The Gershwins, along with Kaufman and Ryskind, had set out to attack what they saw as the unresponsiveness of the
Hoover Administration to the effects of the Great Depression on the economic and psychological health of the country.
Their lyrics, dialogue, and music all lent themselves to a show that clearly elucidated their attitudes about the cultural and political issues of their time.
78Richards, 573.
79Mates, 187 - 188. CHAPTER IV
THE WAR YEARS: RODGERS AND
HAMMERSTEIN CELEBRATE AMERICA
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II began their careers together in 1943, with their writing of Oklahoma. each having already made a significant impact on their own in musical theatre. They would go on to create together eight additional Broadway shows80 of which five (including
Oklahoma^ were major successes.81
Rodgers and Hammerstein came together because of the dissolution of the writing team of Rodgers and Lorenz
Hart,82 at a time when Oscar Hammerstein's career seemed to be on the wane.83 Their writing of Oklahoma would prove to
80The eight additional shows are: Carousel (1945), Allegro (1947), South Pacific (1949), The Kina And I (1951), Me And Juliet (1953), Pipe Dream (1955), The Flower Drum Song (1958), and The Sound Of Music (1959). Bordman, 692 - 693.
81The shows not enjoying particular success were Allegro. Me And Juliet, and Pipe Dream. Bordman, 692.
82Due to Hart's alcoholism. In his autobiography, Rodgers discusses the extent to which Hart's alcoholism had impaired his ability to write lyrics, and therefore the team's ability to write shows. Richard Rodgers, Musical Stages. (New York: Random House, 1975), 217.
83His last major successful show having been Music In The Air in 1932. Rodgers, 222.
34 35 be a major landmark in the musical theatre for two reasons: the further integration of music, lyrics, and character; and the introduction of choreography used as an integral part of the story-telling. It is also an example of American
"mythology” utilized to rally the nation in a time of great need.84
Oklahoma was commissioned in order to save the Theatre
Guild from financial ruin.85 The Guild chose Green Grow
The Lilacs, a play by Lynn Riggs, produced in 1928, to adapt as a musical and secured Richard Rodgers and, they assumed,
Lorenz Hart, to do the adaptation. With the breakup of the
Rodgers and Hart team, the Guild left it to Rodgers to find an appropriate lyricist.86 With Oscar Hammerstein, Rodgers not only found a lyricist, but a librettist, too. Oklahoma opened on March 31, 1943 at the St. James Theatre in New
York.87
Oklahoma centers around an event, a "box social" which the men of the Oklahoma territory ask their favored girls to attend. The main plot involves Laurie Williams and her
84The terms "mythology" and "myth" are being used in the classical sense of the word - refering to the passing on of a particular nations' beliefs and value systems. Webstern New World Dictionary, c.v. "myth."
85The Theatre Guild was an organization that produced plays and musicals for Broadway. Due to the years of Depression and World War II it was experiencing extreme financial hardship. Green, 209.
86Rodgers, 216 - 217.
87Bordman, 534. 36 desire to attend the "box social" with Curly, a local farmer. She is torn between possibly giving up her independence by going with Curly (for she realizes that this might lead to a more permanent relationship), and keeping her independence, by going with Jud Fry, an unscrupulous farmhand who works on her ranch.
A subplot revolves around Ado Annie and the choices that she must make between Ali Hakim, a travelling peddler who wants a "one-night stand," and Will Parker, who wants to marry her. Ado Annie is torn by indecision throughout the play. This indecision is used as a comic balance to
Laurie's decision making process.
Another subplot, though less developed, revolves around the Oklahoma territory and the quest of its people for statehood. The two major political forces within the territory, the ranchers and the "cowboys" are at odds over how the territory should be governed and over who will hold the most political strength.
In the end, both women select "virtue" over independence pairing with Curly and Will respectively. The cast is united in its loyalty to what will become the new state of Oklahoma, and all live "happily ever after."
Oklahoma was written during World War II, a time when the ideals of freedom and democracy, most notably represented by the Allied powers of Great Britain, France, and the United States, were under attack by the Fascist 37 powers of the Axis - Germany, Italy, and Japan. With the level of mobilization that this war commanded, and the extreme nature of the threat that the Axis posed, it was natural that the homefront would turn inward, to rediscover that which the country celebrated as its most important virtues, one of which was the concept of the frontier. It is significant that Rodgers and Hammerstein chose to use as a basis for the show a play that had been written in the
1920's, a time when the idea of the frontier was still very prominent in American folklore.
The frontier had long held sway over the imagination of the American public. In a recent essay, social and political commentator George Will stated that:
In fact and fiction, Americans came to define freedom as a function of physical space and particularly the West's vastness. Daniel Boone fled west from the sound of the axes, Natty Bumpo escaped into the wilderness from the temptations of civilized life, Huck Finn lit out for the territories where novelist Willa Cather experienced 'the inconceivable silence of the plains.'88
The feeling that the open frontier is more desirable than the closed city has been in the American psyche since our earliest days. In a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette,
George Washington stated that "the tumultuous populace of large cities are ever to be dreaded. Their indiscriminate violence prostrates for the time all public authority, and
88George Will, "The Frontier And Civic Virtue." The Washington Post. 3 March 1991, 1C, 7. 38 its consequences are sometimes extensive and terrible.1189
Thomas Jefferson wrote that "the mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body."90
The ideal of the frontier, representing so much of the
American spirit, played a significant role in Oklahoma. In the essay cited above, George Will wrote about Frederick
Jackson Turner, who, in 1893, wrote The Significance Of The
Frontier in American History. Will states that his
(Turner's) thesis was that "for America, geography had been destiny. The abundance of Western lands explained the nation's development, moral as well as material. It shaped our democratic values of egalitarianism, individualism, pleasure in physical mobility, confidence in social mobility, and faith in the possibility of rebirth through a fresh start out yonder, over the next mountain.1191
In a recent exhibit at the National Museum of American
Art, entitled "The West as America", this point is further advanced. In the museum brochure, William Truettner, describing art which depicted the frontier, states "overland migration and the activities that preceded and followed it were made to seem as if they were a fulfilling adventure
"George Washington, letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, 28 July 1791.
"Thomas Jefferson, Notes On The State of Virginia. 1784.
91Will, 1C, 7. 39
....this exhibition tells us that....communities were established, became respectable, and ultimately prospered; and that the abundant natural resources of the West could be exploited for everyone's benefit." 92
Several songs in Oklahoma illustrate the point that the open frontier and the rural lifestyle were the ideal, for example, the opening lyrics of the show, as sung by
Curly, "Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'" -
There's a bright golden haze on the meadow, There's a bright golden haze on the meadow, The corn is as high as an elephant's eye - An' it looks like it's climbin' clear up to the sky.
Oh, what a beautiful mornin', Oh, what a beautiful day! I got a beautiful feelin' Ev'rythin's goin my way.
The closing song, "Oklahoma," also sung by Curly along with the entire cast is as telling:
They couldn't pick a better time to start in life! It ain't too early and it ain't too late. Startin' as a farmer with a brand new wife - Soon be livin' in a brand new state! Brand new state Gonna treat you great! Gonna give you barley, Carrots and petaters - Pasture for the cattle - Spinach and termayters! Flowers on the prairie where the June bugs zoom - Plen'y of air and plen'y of room - Plen'y of room to swing a rope! Plen'y of heart and plen'y of hope.
Oklahoma Where the wind comes sweep' wheat
92William Truettner, "The West as America: Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier." (Washington, D.C.: The National Museum of American Art, 1991), 1. 40
Can sure smell sweet When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma, Every night my honey lamb and I Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk Makin' lazy circles in the sky. We know we belong to the land And the land we belong to is grand! And when we say! All: Yeow! A yip-i-o-ee-ay! Curly: We're only sayin' You're doin'fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma, O.K.!
Both songs, sung by the hero, and placed in prominent positions in the show (opening and closing), glorify the frontier as the ideal locale, and frame of mind, for the happy, fulfilled person. Especially in the case of
"Oklahoma," in which the bounty of the land and the idealization of a new start in life (as represented by the marriage of Curly and Laurie, and by the admission of the
Oklahoma Territory into the Union) was a reaffirmation of one of the most important of all American myths at a time when Americans were being faced with the greatest threat in its history.
There are other indications in Oklahoma of the glorification of frontier life. In "Kansas City," for example, we hear Will, who has just returned, singing of the
"seedy" aspects of life in the urban environment:
Will: Ev'rythin's up to date in Kansas City. They've gone about as fur as they can go! They got a big theayter they call a bur-les-que Fer fifty cents you c'n see a dandy show.
Ike: Gals? 41
Will: One of the gals was fat and pink and pretty, As round above as she was round below I could swear that she was padded from shoulder to her heel But later in the second act when she began to peel She proved that ev'rthin' she had was absolutely real!
Eller: She went about as fur as she can go!
All: Yes sir! She went about as fur as she could go!
Even in "The Farmer and The Cowman," while both sides are arguing over who has the better way of life, both ways are positioned as more favorable than that of the urban dweller. For example, the farmer is portrayed as a "good and thrifty citizen," that "you seldom see him drinkin' in a bar room;" while the cowman "treads a difficult and stony road" and "he rides for days on end with jist a pony for a friend." At the end of the song, Aunt Eller appeals to the rugged individualism of the American frontiersman:
I'd like to teach you all a little sayin' And learn these words by heart the way you should: "I don't say I'm no better than anybody else, But I'll be damned if I ain't just as good!"
The entire cast then joins in a reprise, affirming her thought.
The first innovation that Hammerstein used in Oklahoma was the opening song, "Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin'," in which he eliminated any pretense of a typical opening production number, and instead wrote a ballad, the beginning of which is sung off-stage. The curtain rises on Aunt Eller sitting on her porch churning butter, with Curly singing the song, first off-stage, and then, later, to Aunt Eller. 42
This first song, and the dialogue immediately
following it, also indicated a new direction for the musical
theatre. All of the characters speak and sing in a dialect
appropriate to their characters, geographical locale, and
class, for example, Curly sings:
All the sounds of the earth are like music - All the sounds of the earth are like music. The breeze is so busy it don't miss a tree, And an ol' weepin' wilier is laughin' at me.
The dialogue immediately following this number is:
Eller: If I wasn't a ol' womern, and if you wasn't so young and smart alecky - why, I'd marry you and git you to set around at night and sing to me. Curly: No, you wouldn't neither cuz I wouldn't marry you ner none of yer kinfolks, I could he'p it. Eller: Oh, none of my kinfolks, huh? Curly: Yeh, and you c'n tell 'em that, ALL of'm, includin' that niece of your'n, Miss Laurey Williams.
While dialect had been used, especially to portray
black characters or white "character" roles in the past,93
it had not been used for the majority of other roles. There
is an obvious attempt by Hammerstein to help the director
and actors create the characters through the use of dialect
and colloquialism. It is done as a sincere attempt to
capture the essence of the people that Hammerstein is
portraying, to hold them up for glorification.
Another major development in Oklahoma was the choreography. Rodgers and Hammerstein believed that
Oklahoma required dance that was integrated with the show,
just as their music, lyrics, and dialogue was. Having just
93Green, 213. 43 seen Agnes de Mille's Rodeo. Rodgers and Hammerstein were convinced that they had found a choreographer who would be capable of capturing the spirit of the frontier, and who could mesh the dance into the plot.94
According to dance biographer Richard Kislan, de Milie went so far as to "assign her dancers dramatic features previously reserved for actors and singers only - among them depth of character, motivation, and emotional content."95
The most dramatic choreography, both in content and in innovation, was the Dream Ballet, also sometimes referred to as "Laurie Makes Up Her Mind."96 This ballet, which closed the first act, portrays a "dream" that Laurie has which illustrates all her fears about Jud and her love for Curly.
In it, according to Kislan, "gesture, movement, steps, turns, and lifts acquired layers of suggested meaning that were as indicative of the show's emotional and intellectual content as what the composer's musical notes connoted aurally."97 The form advanced one step further because
"for the first time, not only were songs and story inseparable, but the dances devised by Agnes de Mille
94Lerner, 152.
95Richard Kislan, Hoofing on Broadway. A History of Show Dancing. (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1987), 76.
96Ibid., 77
97Ibid. 44
heightened the drama by revealing the subconscious fears and
desires of the leading characters.1,98
In Oklahoma Rodgers and Hammerstein chose the frontier
to represent the best of American values. Christian
Mendenhall states "Oklahoma supports the...need to preserve
the American Dream for wartime audiences. Curly and Laurey
are put in context with the whole pioneer society which,
like the war, was a communal enterprise."99 The threat
that the Fascist powers represented was complete destruction
of the values which Americans believed their country represented: the egalitarianism, individualism, and
confidence in social mobility, that George Will and
Frederick Jackson Turner wrote about.100 Oklahoma celebrates these values at the time when they were most severely threatened so as to reinforce the need for the extreme sacrifices that many American families were suffering because of the war effort.
98Green, 212.
"Mendenhal1, 119.
lcoWill, Cl, 7. CHAPTER V
STEPHEN SONDHEIM QUESTIONS
MIDDLE CLASS VALUES
Stephen Sondheim's education began as an informal student of Oscar Hammerstein's, having met Hammerstein through Hammerstein's son, Jimmy, a close friend. At the age of fifteen, Sondheim wrote a musical which he asked
Hammerstein to critique honestly. Sondheim quotes
Hammerstein as saying that it was the "worst thing he had ever read," but that Sondheim was not without talent, "in that afternoon [when he was discussing the show with
Hammerstein] I learned more about songwriting and the musical theatre than most people learn in a lifetime."101
Sondheim went on to write the lyrics to two of the most important shows in musical theatre history, West Side
Story in 1957, and Gypsy in 1959, and then to write the lyrics to eleven, and the music to ten of them.102
101Zadan, 4.
1D2The eleven shows are: A Funny Thing Happened On The Wav To The Forum (1962), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Do I Hear A Waltz (music by Richard Rodgers - 1965), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1976), Sweeney Todd (1979), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday In The Park With George (1984), Into The Woods (1987). zadan, 396 - 407.
45 46
Additionally, to date, he has written two Off-Broadway shows.103
Company. with a book by George Furth, opened on April
26, 1970 at the Alvin Theatre in New York.104 It is the story of Robert, a single, thirty-five year old man, and his ten "best friends," who are divided up into five married couples. The first act opens with a surprise party given by all five couples in honor of Robert's birthday. The couples act as a Greek Chorus, commenting not so much on the action, but on their feelings about marriage, urban life, and, most especially, about Robert. Robert serves as both a character at the center of the plot, and as an observer who views the relationships of the five couples from a close, yet safe, distance.
The show is a series of vignettes, performed in song, and in dialogue, which portray marital relationships, and the strong dissatisfaction with them that each of these characters has. Robert, while making observations about these relationships, is, even in the end, unable to commit to such a relationship; and is left alone in a world that views single status as perhaps unfullfilling but, in reality, perhaps preferable. None of these characters are able to make choices for themselves. They are, in fact,
lt>3These shows are Marry Me A Little (1980) and Assassins (1991). Zadan, 408.
104Bordman, 665. 47 reacting to forces which they feel they cannot control, and are operating under "rules" that they feel do not seem to apply and that have been reduced to cliches. The show ends with none of the problems resolved.
This show developed the concept of integration which had been initiated with Oklahoma. The creation of this show was a joint effort of Sondheim and Furth along with the
Director Hal Prince, the choreographer, Michael Bennett, and the Scenic Designer, Boris Aronson 105 Sondheim, for example, did not even compose the title song, (which is continually reprised throughout the show) until after he had seen a model of Aronson's set.106 All of the major figures in producing the musical (composer/lyricist, librettist, director, choreographer, and designers) had creative ideas from the very beginning which influenced the writing of
Company. Choreographer Michael Bennett, for fxample,
"choreographed the characters...their physicalities were broadened [because] this was a chance to do something different because there was so much subtext" to this show.107
Company does not have a plot line. Sondheim has said that, "up until Company, I thought that musicals had to have
1<55Foster Hirsch, Harold Prince. And The American Musical Theatre. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 90-91.
106Ibid.
107Zadan, 122 - 123. 48 very strong plots. One of the things that fascinated me about the challenge of the show was to see if a musical could be done without one."108 Most of the songs in
Company are vehicles for a character, or a set of characters, to comment on the action or on their feelings; which is in marked contrast to the Rodgers and Hammerstein style of reaching a certain point within the dialogue, and then having the characters break into song to further explain the emotion portrayed.
Company was written at a time when many of the traditional values of the American middle class were questioned by artists, activists with many differing political agendas, and the "younger generation." The war in
Vietnam and the peace movement at home, Civil Rights, the
Women's and the Gay Rights Movements were just some of the forces that were gathering momentum as the decade of the
1960's ended. Everywhere the middle class turned, they were faced with questions, often cynical, about how they had lived their lives. In 1969, for example, Hollywood filmmakers produced Midnight Cowboy. Easy Rider, and Alice's
Restaurant; and, in 1970, Catch-22, and M*A*S*H. all of which had tremendous success and all of which questioned established codes of behavior and systems of belief. In an end of the year essay in 1969, New York Times film critic
Vincent Canby wrote:
108Ibid. , 124. 49
Today's youth movies are so much less innocent and less parochial - concerned, as they are, with drugs and war and sex and alienation - that I really don't think of them as "youth" movies. Quite obviously, a lot of people who are not especially young are responding to Easy Rider and Alice's Restaurant and Goodbye Columbus.109
The stage was also filled with plays guestioning the
values and traditional societal structures that had
dominated the American middle class. The rock musical Hair,
which opened on Broadway in 1968, was experiencing
tremendous success well into 1969.110 Two shows, one in
New York, and one at Princeton, also help to elucidate this
point. On January 26, 1969, Red. White and Maddox opened in
New York, it guestioned the political structure of the
nation, and especially the South, by lampooning Governor
Lester G. Maddox of Georgia.111 At traditionally
conservative Princeton, the annual Triangle review entitled
A Different Kick, spoofed "law and order, student
demonstrations, slums, racism, homosexuality, business
ethics, and drug addiction."112
109Vincent Canby, "Critics Choice: The Ten Best Films of 1969," The New York Times. 28 December 1969, II, 1.
llpHair was the broadest attack on the War in Vietnam and on the "establishment" that had ever played on Broadway. Its glorification of the "hippie" lifestyle was unprecedented in its day. Clive Barnes, The New York Times. 5 February 1969, 36.
^Clive Barnes, "Satire From Atlanta Is At The Cort Theatre," The New York Times. 27 January 1969, 27.
112Murray Schumach, "Princeton Students Spotlight Issues Of Controversy," The New York Times, 5 January 1969, 76. 50
Literature also reflected much of the questioning that was occurring throughout American society. In a Time magazine article summing up the most important books of the
1960's, it listed, among others, several that indicate the reevaluation that was going on, including The Armies of the
Night, A Separate Peace. Catch-22. Cat's Cradle. The Other
America, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X .113
Another Time magazine article, from the December 28,
1970 issue, indicated just how far many people believed the crisis concerning the elimination of middle class values had gone. The article, entitled "The American Family: Future
Uncertain," stated that "students in rebellion, the young people living in communes, unmarried couples living together call into question the very meaning and structure of the stable family unit as our society has known it." It goes on to say that "no society has ever survived after its family life deteriorated."114
Given all of the turmoil in American society and its reflection by the popular culture, it is not surprising to see that the musical theatre turned increasingly away from the "happily ever after" style of previous shows towards the more questioning and probing stance of Company.
At the very beginning of Company. even before the
113Anonymous, "The Decade's Most Notable Books," Time. 26 December 1969, 56.
114Anonymous, "The American Family: Future Uncertain," Time. 28 December 1970, 34. 51
opening song, the audience is given a glimpse of what the
show is about. In a birthday toast to Robert, the following
dialogue is exchanged:
Peter: And may this year bring you fame, fortune, and your first wife! All: Hear, hear! Robert: Listen, I'm fine without the three. Joanne: You bet your ass, baby.
The opening number, "Company" begins with the
vocalized calls of Robert's friends - "Bobby...Bobby...Bobby
baby... Robby...Robert Darling..." and so on, immediately
followed by the sound of a busy signal, and then finally the
song. Friends are all inviting Bobby over for dinner, or to
see the kids, or to substitute for one of the husbands at
the opera, etc. Robert's refrain is:
Phone rings, door chimes, in comes company! No strings, good times, room hums, company! Late nights, quick bites, party games, Deep talks, long walks, telephone calls, Thoughts shared, souls bared, private names, All those photos up on the walls "With Love," With love filling the days, With love seventy ways, "To Bobby, with love" From all Those Good and crazy people, my friends, Those Good and crazy people, my married friends! And that's what it's all about, isn't it? That's what it's really about, Really about!
Immediately the audience is presented with the style of sarcasm that Sondheim will utilize throughout: "That's what it's really about, isn't it?". This song is used as a tool to communicate the basic feelings that Bobby has in 52 regards to marriage, and even towards his friends. It is all
"crazy," and not necessarily to be trusted.
As the song concludes, telephones and doorbells are heard as well as "city" sounds, such as sirens, horns, traffic, etc., followed by dialogue to help set the characterizations of the friends.
Joanne: What time was that? Larry: Five o'clock, I think, Joanne. Joanne: Thank God, cocktail hour! April: Final departure call for NSEW Airlines Flight One-nineteen. Will the passengers that have not boarded please do so. Sarah: Harry, it's the door. I'll get it. Harry: I've got it. Sarah: I'll get it. I always do. Peter: What the hell is that noise? Susan: They're cleaning the building next door, or tearing it down. Kathy: Taxi! Taxi! Oh, please, please! Marta: Will you stop blowing that horn, you dodo! Amy: Paul, what is that noise? Paul: I don't hear anything. Jenny: Oh, David, the phone! David: I'll get it. Jenny: Oh, the kids. It's gonna wake up the kids.
Throughout Company. Sondheim portrays marital relations in the contemporary age. For example, the second song of the show, "The Little Things You Do Together," is sung by the all the married couples who comment that:
It's not talk of God and the decade ahead that Allow you to get through the worst. It's "I do" and "You don't" and "Nobody said that" And "Who brought the subject up first?"
The number becomes increasingly sarcastic. The
"little things you do together" become larger misunderstandings, eventually leading to divorce. This song is immediately followed by "Sorry-Grateful" sung by all of 53 the husbands after Robert asks one of them if "You are ever sorry you got married?" The lyrics indicate the direction that the show takes:
HARRY: You're always sorry, You're always grateful You're always wondering what might have been. Then she walks in.
And still you're sorry And still you're grateful, And still you wonder and still you doubt, And she goes out.
Why look for answers where none occur? You always are what you always were, Which has nothing to do with, All to do with her.
DAVID: You're always sorry, You're always grateful, You hold her thinking, "I'm not alone." You're still alone. You don't live for her, You do live with her, You're scared she's starting to drift away And scared she'll stay.
This song is important for two reasons, the obvious statement that it makes in regards to the feelings that the husbands share about their respective marriages, and the question posed: "Why look for answers where none occur?"
Two other songs that illustrate these points are the last two in the show, "The Ladies Who Lunch" and "Being
Alive." In "The Ladies Who Lunch" one of the wives, Joanne, proposes a toast:
Here's to the girls who play wife - Aren't they too much? Keeping house but clutching a copy of LIFE Just to keep in touch. 54
The ones who follow the rules, And meet themselves at the schools, Too busy to know that they're fools - Aren't they a gem? I'll drink to them. Let's all drink to them.
It seems that this song is not so much about housewives, as about blind acceptance of rules of behavior in any given situation.
With "Being Alive" there is a more direct corollary to relationships. In "Being Alive," Robert is crying out for answers that no one can give him, except himself. He sings about the need that one person has for another:
Someone to hold you too close, Someone to hold you too deep, Someone to sit in your chair, To ruin your sleep...
Someone to need you too much, Someone to know you too well, Someone to pull you up short And put you through hell...
Someone to have to let in, Someone whose feelings you spare, Someone who, like it or not, will want you to share A little, a lot...
By the end of the number, Robert wants to be needed too much, and held too close, and to be known too well. Or does he? The last scene of the show has all of the friends waiting for Robert to arrive for the next year's surprise party, but he never does. The stage directions call for
Robert to simply stand center and smile, while the guests at the party attempt to figure out what could have happened to him. He disappears from their lives, either to pursue a 55 relationship, or to go on the way he has up until now.
Sondheim and Furth leave it to the audience members to decide. Sondheim has said "we wanted a show where the audience would sit for two hours screaming their heads off with laughter and then go home and not be able to sleep. "115
The other major theme throughout Company is that modern urban life brings about dehumanization. This theme is somewhat like the theme in Oklahoma. the difference being that Rodgers and Hammerstein extol the virtues of the frontier and only poke fun at urban dwelling, while Sondheim and Furth bitterly attack urban life, offering no alternatives.
For example, in Act I, Scene 3, a scene takes place which gives an early indication of the authors' thoughts about urban life.
Robert: It is so great to have a terrace. Wow. Susan: We never use it. We keep things like old sleds and stuff out here. Robert: You don't ever sit out here? Peter: I hate it. And the kids are impossible out here. And everyone can hear everything you say...And it's dirty all the time__ Susan: And noisy. Oo, that traffic. You can't even hear yourself think.
Act I, Scene 5, presents another attack on urban life with the song "Another Hundred People."
It's a city of strangers - Some come to work, some to play - A city of strangers -
115Hirsch, 88. 56
Some come to stare, some to stay - And every day The ones who stay Can find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks, By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks, And they walk together past the postered walls with the crude remarks, And they meet at parties through the friends of friends who they never know. Will you pick me up or do I meet you there or shall we let it go? Did you get my message? 'Cause I looked in vain. Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn't rain? And another hundred people just got off of the train.
To demonstrate the effects that dehumanization has on the individual, Amy, a character who attempts to cancel her impending wedding, sings in "Getting Married Today:"
Listen everybody, I'm afraid you didn't hear, or do you Want to see a crazy lady fall apart in front of you? It Isn't only Paul who may be ruining his life, you know, we'll Both of us be losing our identities - I telephoned my Analyst about it but he said to see him Monday, and by Monday I'll be floating in the Hudson, with the other garbage.
Later in the song, Amy asks if it "wouldn't be funnier to go and watch a funeral" rather than a wedding. Amy is concerned by the fact that no one ever "hears" her, that she may be crazy and may need an analyst for having the ordinary fears that accompany getting married.
Sondheim and Furth posed many of the same questions that Rodgers and Hammerstein had posed: What does it mean to be free (especially in the context of a relationship)? What is the desirable lifestyle, urban or rural? And how does one relate to his or her surroundings in a civilized way? The dramatic difference between the answers that Rodgers and
Hammerstein offered and those offered by Sondheim and Furth are a clue to understanding how each represented their time.
While Rodgers and Hammerstein offered the traditional
American "myth” as their answer, Sondheim and Furth sought only to question. The questions that are posed are never answered; and the assumption that all will end "happily ever after" is not even hinted at. Sondheim and Furth lay out for the audience a questioning of relationships, and the effect that urbanization has on individuals and on relationships. This questioning of middle class values, and the attack on urbanization reflect the turmoil of the period. The late 1960's was a period of massive social upheaval in almost all areas of American life and Company is an fine example of this. CHAPTER VI
CONCLUSION
The musical theatre is one of the few truly American popular art forms. Although it had European origins, it was developed, over several decades, into a distinctly American format, communicating distinctly American themes.
The popular nature of musical theatre lent itself to becoming an expression of American thought. Throughout its history, the creators of the American musical theatre have utilized the values and myths of the American people to communicate ideas. In the case of George M. Cohan, it was unabashed, flag-waving patriotism. In the case of Jerome
Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, it was a celebration of love triumphant "in the end." The three closely examined shows in this thesis, Of Thee I Sinar Oklahoma. and Company. are particularly strong examples of musical theatre expressing the popular thought of the Of the three shows, Of Thee I
Sing is the most direct statement of popular thought. While never discussing specific issues or politicians, the creators of Of Thee I Sing made it very clear that the approach of President Hoover and his Administration to the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression was not acceptable. With one stinging blow, the Gershwins sum up
58 59
their opinion of Hoover with the song "Who Cares?" and most
notably with the lyrics "Who cares what banks fail in
Yonkers/Long as you've got a kiss that conquers." Less than
eleven months after Of Thee I Sing opened, Franklin D.
Roosevelt ousted President Hoover from the White House in an
election that began the era of the New Deal, which would
last until Ronald Reagan's election in 1980. The Gershwin's
Of Thee I Sing was clearly a barometer of the popular
thought during the early years of the Depression.
Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma is an example of a
more direct approach to communicating popular thought.
Written at the height of World War II, Oklahoma sought to
portray the best of America. While on the surface this show
seems to be a love story between Curly and Laurie, it is in
fact deeper. With the depictions of the farmers and the
cowmen, the quest for statehood by the people of the
Oklahoma territory, and the desire for the freedom of the
frontier, Rodgers and Hammerstein were reminding wartime
audiences of one of the most important American myths. For
a people faced with the terror of the Axis powers and world war, it was comforting, and indeed, encouraging, to see and hear such a cherished myth portrayed. The reminder of what
it was they were fighting for came at a crucial time for many Americans.
Stephen Sondheim's Company is also an unquestionable
reflection of its time. Written at the height of the social upheaval commonly referred to as "The 60's," Company asks many questions about the nature of relationships and the effects of living in a modern urban setting. The departure point for this show from its predecessors is that it did not attempt to answer these questions, it merely posed them.
There is, however, a threatening aspect to the questions because they are all aimed at the middle class values then predominating in American society. Sondheim's attacks on
"the Establishment" were similar to those of the anti-war, civil rights, and women's movements. Company reflects a protesting period of American history unmistakably, with its biting sarcasm and its unsettling questions.
In various ways these musicals are still being
"consumed" today. Oklahoma. for example, is performed in dinner theaters and summer stock a great deal. While Of
Thee I Sing and Company are not performed quite as often, they too, are regularly produced in varying venues. These venues are in many ways an extension of the Broadway stage - popular culture now performed throughout the country.
Musical theatre, as a popular art form, reflects the thoughts and feelings of the American people in many ways.
The "canon" of American musicals represent many of the important myths that this country was built on, and to which much of its population (at least the white middle class) subscribed to. Whether a severely depressed economy, a world war, or unprecedented social upheaval, the American musical has reflected the beliefs, the fears, and the value systems of much of the American population. As such, it has served entertainment needs while addressing issues of
American popular thought. 62
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